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In the District Court, petitioner contended that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial because [t]here is cause to believe that Judge Maloney s

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, Feb 19, 2013

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In the District Court, petitioner contended that he was "deprived of his right to a fair trial" because "[t]here is cause to believe that Judge Maloney's discretionary rulings in this case may have been influenced by a desire on his part to allay suspicion of his pattern of corruption and dishonesty." App. 5.[6] In support, he submitted a copy of Maloney's 1991 indictment, App. 16-35, and a newspaper article describing testimony from Maloney's trial, in which attorney William Swano described an additional, uncharged incident where he bribed Maloney to fix a murder case. App. 12, n. 1, 36-38. In a supplemental motion for discovery, petitioner's codefendant Roger Collins alleged that "[a] Government witness in the Maloney case has advised . . . that co-defendant Bracy's trial attorney was a former partner of [Judge, so called] Thomas Maloney." App. 51. Collins attached to that motion a copy of the United States' proffer of evidence in aggravation in Maloney's case, which describes in considerable detail Maloney's corruption both before and after he became a judge. See App. 54 ("Although [it is] difficult to imagine, Thomas Maloney's life of corruption was considerably more expansive than proved at trial"). The United States' proffer asserts, for example, that Maloney fixed serious felony cases regularly while a practicing criminal defense attorney;[7] that, as a judge, he continued to corrupt justice through the same 907*907 political relationships and organized-crime connections he had exploited as a lawyer;[8] and that at least one attorney from Maloney's former law firm, Robert McGee, was actively involved in assisting Maloney's corruption, both before and after he became a judge, and also bribed Maloney himself, App. 55, 68-72. In addition, the proffer confirms that petitioner's murder trial was sandwiched tightly between other murder trials that Maloney fixed.[9]